Like other Britons in colonial India, Sir William Sleeman had a poor opinion of the traditional holy men who still formed an important part of Indian society in the nineteenth century. Reflecting his writings on the suppression of the Thugs that would make him famous, Sleeman declared that, “There is hardly any species of crime that is not throughout India perpetrated by men in the disguise of these religious mendicants; and almost all such mendicants are really men in disguise”.1 None of these holy men were considered more dubious – more superstitious and reactionary – than the dervishes and faqīrs. In popular Indian usage the terms darwīsh and faqīr referred to a class of Muslim holy men who were considered to possess a range of miraculous powers, powers which served to demonstrate their proximity to God; and so in turn to underwrite their considerable authority.2 For many British officials, it was this authority that stood at the heart of what they saw as the faqīr problem. As the rumours that surrounded the various ‘mutinies’ of the nineteenth century demonstrate, faqīr s were seen as the perpetual ringleaders of rebellion and sedition. Nowhere were these concerns more insistent than in the circles of India's colonial armies, which more than any other aspect of colonial society relied on loyalty to a formalised and rational chain of command. Yet in spite (and in some ways because) of these fears, the commanders of the various armies under British command in India were anxious to demonstrate their respect for the autonomy of the religious rights of the Indian soldier. Through the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the Islam of ‘Jack Sepoy’ or the Indian soldier fell in between this tension of covert suspicion and official respect, and in different ways the careers of a series of Muslim holy men attached to the Muslim soldiers were shaped by this tension. Over the following pages, this essay examines the careers of three faqīr s connected to the Hyderabad Contingent, the army under British command in the nominally independent princely state of Hyderabad in South India, better known as the Nizam's State. Looking out from this princely corner of Britain's ‘informal empire’, the essay uses a number of forgotten small-town texts in Urdu to begin to reconstruct the religious history of the Indian soldier from the inside, as it were, and so to create an ethnohistory of Islam in the colonial armies of the British Empire.3

Although references to the subject of Ismā'īlī doctrine have been frequent enough in the text-books and learned journals, the earliest source quoted in nearly all of them is the Ta'rīkh-i Jahān-Gushā of Juwaynī. By a comparison of that work with the corresponding section of the Jāmi' al-Tawārīkh of Rashīd al-Dīn it is evident that the latter is the source from which Juwaynī drew most of his materials, and that for his compilation he used such sections of it as suited his purposes, omitting and transposing passages as he thought fit. In certain instances his omissions from the text have caused obscurities which the original version of Rashīd al-Dīn does not contain, and quite often the borrowings have been incorporated without any great effort to make them fit snugly into their context. Since the Ta'rīkh-i Jahān-Gushā is fairly well known I shall confine myself here to the work of Rashīd al-Dīn, which seems destined for some time longer to remain in the obscurity of manuscript.

Chinese perfumery arts have a history of two or three thousand years. The art however, was never specifically separated from medicine, personal grooming or food culture; many aromatic materials were used for all of these purposes. In comparison to western traditions it is notable that Chinese perfumery was local in character. The aromatic raw materials employed were often native to Chinese lands, or imported from nearby. Moreover, Chinese perfumery differs from the western tradition in regard to the way in which a few outstanding aromatics have been employed.

In 305 B.C. Demetrius I Poliorcetes of Macedonia (r. 321–283), pursuing his ambition of reuniting the empire of Alexander, marched against the island city of Rhodes, which since the partition of 323 had been able to reassert its independence and pursue its own foreign policies. The ensuing siege, one of the most famous military campaigns of Hellenistic times, was a failure, and in 304 Demetrius was obliged to admit defeat and withdraw, leaving behind his siege train and large amounts of other military stores. The jubilant Rhodians gathered up this equipment and sold it for 300 talents, which, in gratitude for their deliverance, they used to commission a spectacular monument to the sun god Helios, the focus of a lively cult at Rhodes. The sculptor selected for the task was Chares, an artist from the town of Lindos (about 40 kilometres south of the capital) and a student of the renowned Lyssipus, who had recently erected a great bronze statue of Zeus at Tarentum in Italy.

Man's moral responsibility for his actions is a tenet of Islamic revelation which no Muslim has ever tried to reject. Likewise, the notion of God's omnipotence, which the Qur'ān teaches, has never been challenged by Muslims. However, there is a great difficulty in explaining how true moral responsibility coincides with God's omnipotence; if God creates all things, He also creates man's actions, and this being the case, man cannot be responsible for them. As is well known, the Mu'tazilite solution to the antinomy of God's omnipotence and man's responsibility consists in affirming man's capability, granted to him by God, of creating his own works. Adhering to their principle of God's justice, the Mu'tazilites asserted that if God were to create a man's unbelief while commanding him to believe, He would be unjust in punishing him for unbelief, since the man could not, in this situation, help but disbelieve. According to them, ought implies can. In upholding man's responsibility for his own actions, the Mu'tazilites saved God's justice, but according to the Ash'arites, detracted from God's omnipotence. The Ash'arites taught that since God is the sole creator, He creates human actions. In order to safeguard both God's omnipotence and man's responsibility, al-Ash'arī, having been influenced by the teaching of al-Najjār, developed a theory of kasb (lit. acquisition) according to which God creates man's actions while man appropriates them and thus becomes responsible for them.

‘Krishna and Rukmini’ is the title of Amar Citra Kathā comic vol. 516, with artwork by Pratap Mulick. The front page has a muscular Kṛ⋅ṇa gallantly helping an entranced lady mount his chariot. Or is he that gallant? A closer look reveals that Kṛ⋅ṇa is actually grabbing her by the wrist; yet the lady seems more than willing, she is coquettishly lifting her skirt as she mounts the vehicle, and her eyes look adoringly, somewhat naively, at her hero as she smiles coyly. The only hint of opposition is in the background where we see angry mustached warriors coming after them. Is this a case of abduction, or is it better called an elopement?

The early Persian document written in Hebrew characters which Professor D. S. Margoliouth has at my request kindly undertaken to publish, and of which his present ṗaper is intended to furnish a preliminary account, was obtained by me in the course of my journey of archaeological exploration in Chinese Turkestan carried out during 1900–1, under the orders of the Government of India.

Anyone familiar with classical Japanese literature cannot but be struck by the rich array of terms such as mono no aware, yugen, wabi and sabi, to mention just a few, which are regarded as being central to the understanding of Japanese artistic theory and practice. These categories were not, of course, essentialist and unchanging. They were dynamic concepts which were subject to major transformations. These transformations illuminate important aspects of Japan's cultural history.

This article establishes that the first museum in China was not the Zhendan Museum in Shanghai, founded by the French Jesuit Pierre Marie Heude (1836–1902) in 1868, but the “British Museum in China”, founded in 1829 by three supercargoes of the English East India Company, in Macao, a Portuguese enclave in the Pearl River Delta since c.1577. My research, based on Portuguese, British and American sources, allows us to better understand the context in which the founders of the museum interacted and lived in Macao, how their research and field-work was important for academic British institutions such as the British Museum in London and how the British Museum of Macao was founded and became the first (western-styled) museum in China.

In an article published some 12 years ago, the present writer proposed a location in Iran for the lost Parthian capital named by the Greeks Hecatompylos. This site, called in later days Shahr-i Qūmis, had been located with the help of references given by Apollodorus of Artemita (apud Strabo XI, 9, 1). These describe the Caspian Gates as located 500 stades from the city of Rhagae (modern Ray), and Hecatompylos as a further 1,260 stades beyond the Gates. Since the sites of the first two locations are known, the actual distance of 82 km.

A new copperplate inscription of Vainyagupta, to be presented in this article, is important as one of the rare sources that provide a glimpse of the later history of the Ājīvikas. It also tells us about their worship of Maṇibhadra, one of the eminent yakṣas, with interesting information on his iconography. Finally, it gives us some insights into the early history of Samataṭa, a subregion of Bengal on its eastern fringe, as it includes a copy of the grant of an earlier king named Nāthacandra. In this article, I will present an edition of the inscription and discuss some historical aspects revealed by it in connection with other sources.

Evidence about the ridda of Kinda is as mottled as it is for other events which Islamic historiography includes under the title of ridda. Tendentious writing and apologetics, contradictions and a complete lack of dates make the historian's task very hard indeed. Yet there is much that can be established (with varying degrees of probability) about those sanguinary events. Since no meaningful study of the short though eventful period of the ridda alone is possible, several related topics are also discussed below.

This article contributes to the established scholarship on Sir William Jones (d.1794) by providing a detailed overview and analysis of the Arabic and Persian manuscript collection that Jones acquired both before arriving in India in 1784, and during his time living in Kolkata. 118 manuscripts in Arabic, Persian and Urdu and 69 Sanskrit manuscripts, as well as nine Chinese manuscripts, were transferred to the Royal Society library by Jones in 1792. These were then transferred to the India Office Library in 1876 and are currently housed in the British Library. As well as an in-depth survey of these manuscripts, this article provides important information on the manuscripts which remained in the Jones's possession after 1792 and which were sold, along with the rest of Lady Jones's (d.1829) library, at auction in 1831 after her death. Within this overview of the Arabic and Persian manuscript collections, there will be a sustained focus on the methods of acquiring manuscripts and Jones's curatorial management of his library.

This article analyses long-term population dynamics—growth, decline, sex- and age-composition—in Chaghadaid-era Central Asia in the context of the ‘Late-medieval Crisis’. It is based on a unique dataset of 630 epitaphs from two East Syriac (‘Nestorian') graveyards in the Semirech'ye region (Northwest Tian Shan, North Kyrgyzstan), boosted by archaeological and osteological evidence from the same graveyards. This epigraphic corpus is truly unique in the sense that this is the only surviving data that allow the undertaking of such a quantitative reconstruction of pre-modern Central Asian demography. A close analysis of the corpus, based on the ‘excess mortality’ method, reveals rapid demographic growth between circa 1270 and 1330, despite frequent short-term mortality crises, caused, most likely, by a combination of environmental and political factors. The population growth came to a sudden halt because of a major plague outbreak in 1338–1339, killing about three-quarters of the local population, and initiating what was known as the Black Death of 1347–1353 in West Eurasia and North Africa. The analysis of sex and age ratios indicates that the local population regime was heavily male-dominated. The plague of 1338–1339 targeted primarily younger women, most likely due to pregnancy-related hazards; conversely, in other crisis years, adult males were more susceptible. The findings of the article are wrapped into the wider context of the ‘Late-medieval Crisis’.

Of the six systems of philosophy received among learned Hindus, four have been noticed in the preceding parts of this essay, viz. the theistical and atheistical Sánc'hyas, the dialectic Nyáya, and the atomical Vaiśéshica. The prior or practical Mímánsá will be now considered; reserving the later or theological Mímánsá, usually named Védánta, for a future disquisition, should it appear requisite to pursue the subject, much concerning it being already before the public.

This article examines the significance of Buddhism in the insurgency that followed the annexation of the kingdom of Burma in 1886, demonstrating that Buddhism was a critically important part of the Burmese polity and identity. Moreover, it indicates that opposition to the British after the full colonisation of Burma was not only instantaneous, but also fuelled primarily by Buddhist sentiment. This challenges the prevailing notion that anti-colonialism in Burma – Buddhist-inspired or otherwise – was a twentieth century phenomenon. Beginning with the pre-colonial era, the article explores the intimate connection between Buddhism, the Burmese polity and the national psyche. The critical importance of the Buddhist king is emphasised in particular. When the kingdom of Burma was annexed in 1886, opposition to the British manifested itself instantaneously in the form of rebellions and insurgency. This period, sometimes referred to as the “pacification”, has been often ignored in studies. The article, using British colonial documents, shows clearly the importance of Buddhist sentiment in these uprisings as a response to the abolition of Burma's last Buddhist king. Buddhist themes present in translated rebel proclamations, as well as the widespread participation of Buddhist monks corroborate this.

We must admit that very little is known about the first development of Indian logic and particularly about Buddhist logic before Diṅnāga. If we take the best manuals of Indian logic now available, such as those by Suali, Vidyābhūṣāṇa, Keith, or the most comprehensive Histories of Indian philosophy like those of Dāsgupta and Rādhākrishna we shall easily recognize that the data contained therein are far from being satisfactory; more than that, they are also very often wrong. In fact, almost the only source from which their statements are derived is the book by Sugiura, who certainly had the merit of giving the first account of Indian logic as preserved in Chinese sources, but, being himself absolutely without knowledge of orthodox nyāya and of Sanscrit, is in his statements and in his translations very often misleading.

Midway through his account of the fortunes of the Barmakids in his Murūj aldhahab wa-ma'ādin al-jawhar, al-Masʽūdī (d. 956) introduces a debate on love said to have taken place in the majlis of Yaḥyā ibn Khālid al-Barmakī. Yaḥyā, described as a man of great learning devoted to philosophical discussion, invited the theologians who frequented his salon, and who had previously debated on a variety of philosophical and theological topics, “to speak of love ['ishq], without disputing, each presenting whatever occurs to him as it comes to his mind”. A number of definitions are offered, followed by additional comments by Mas'ūdī; the whole constitutes a substantial digression which intervenes between the depiction of the Barmakids at the height of their power and the account of their fall from favour.

The Turkish Languages are unusually rich in numerical series, and there are pecularities in their numerical system which are, I believe, unparallelled elsewhere. The main facts are well known, and it might be thought that there was nothing more to be said about them; but several interesting points have never been properly discussed. The purpose of this paper is to call attention to them.

Detective fiction counts amongst the most successful literary products that the metropolitan west has exported to the world periphery. Between the end of the nineteenth century and the outbreak of the Second World War the genre acquired a global presence – both in the form of translations of existing works such as the Sherlock Holmes stories, and in the form of numerous indigenous adaptations. This kind of literature represented a prime example of the mass-produced and mass-circulated print entertainment that was part and parcel of the emergence of mass consumption as a social form. Detective fiction was, thus, both a carrier and an expression of modernity. While some literary theorists have pointed to longstanding historical antecedents, detective fiction would not have made sense in earlier historical epochs. The principles of scientific enquiry permeate the genre throughout, not just in terms of the ubiquitous magnifying glasses, finger-prints and assorted scientific apparatuses, but in terms of the subject matter itself – the fact that it is possible to make sense of an increasingly confusing world by uncovering hidden causal connections through rational enquiry.